Entries tagged with cmu

I want to mark the fact that someone I know died last night -- a theatre artist and a lovely woman. I wore one of my CMU shirts all day, as a start.

I was thinking about changing into all black for rehearsal tonight, and then realized that nobody would notice it as anything out of the ordinary. It's tech rehearsal. It's theatre. People wear all black.

But it kind of seems like a doubly appropriate gesture, for that very reason. They're not just mourning clothes, they're work clothes. I didn't know well the designer in question that well, so I don't feel at all comfortable saying something like "She would have wanted that" or "She would have liked that," but I know CMU dramats, and I do think if there's anything we all have in common, it's this: devotion to our art, and some fierce black ensembles, and a tendency to combine one with the other.

(And part of me worries that this whole debate -- this whole post -- is making something that should be about her into something about me, but mourning is always for us the living, isn't it? Is it wrong to do this for me? Is it selfish to do something for me when I only sort of knew her? And I think the answer is no, because it doesn't matter how well I knew her. I know she was talented, I know she was kind, I know she had a beautiful smile, I know she told me once she had a dream about me. I know her boyfriend is a gentle giant and I know that I can't imagine how he must feel now. And I know I'm sad that she's gone.)

Today I put on a funny hat and received two bits of rope, two bits of metal, and one bit of paper, all of which proclaim that I am very smart. Tomorrow I will put on the funny hat and robe again, wear all my bits of rope and paperETA: metal (the paper stays on my wall), and then receive a bit of paper that apparently proclaims to most of the world that I am capable of being an adult.

In 2006, I did CMU Drama's Pre-College program as a Design/PTM student. It wasn't the first time I'd worked in a scene shop, but it was the first time I worked with power tools more intimidating than a power drill. I used bandsaws, tablesaws, pneumatic staplers, nail guns, a cold saw, a drill press, a metal grinder.

But what I was really excited for was welding. Why? I don't know. Welding sounded like fun, was all. It makes sparks and involves making useful things out of metal. Cool skill, right? Who wouldn't want to know how to weld?

Turned out, thanks to the horror stories of our teacher ("A little ball of molten metal comes off of that and gets into your ear and then you've got a hole burned through your eardrum. So that's why we always wear earplugs!") that almost no one in our group wanted to learn how to weld. We got to do two tiny spot welds each -- I think it was probably MIG welding, because I don't remember using filler rods, but I might be wrong -- and that was it. I was sorely disappointed that I had spent six weeks in Steel City and had only gotten to get my hands on actual molten steel that once.

Fast forward to 2010, when I registered for classes for my final semester. There was a welding class that fit into my schedule and by god, I was going to take it. I signed up, jumped through the necessary hoops with the School of Drama registrar to get into a class mostly taken by tech kids, and went home for winter break with a glad heart.

Every time I went to a party or a dinner with my parents and got into a conversation with my parents' friends, my mother insisted, "Tell them what you're taking next semester."

She just couldn't get enough of telling people that I was taking those two classes. Mostly I figured she wanted me to talk about them because they sound like fluff classes, the kind of classes that scream "I'm a senior and I'm done with my credits and I can do whatever the heck I want!" $50,000 dollars a year so I can take PE and shop class: that's hilarity.

Then I got back to school, back to hanging out with drama people. And when I told them that I was taking welding, I got the same reactions I got from my parents' lawyer/doctor/activist/professional friends: "Woah."

What is it about welding that makes people look so surprised when they hear I'm taking it? It has something to do with masculinity, I know, but it doesn't make sense. It's not like I'm lifting huge pieces of metal or doing anything that requires enormous upper-body strength. I'm not . . . I don't know, I just sat here for about three minutes trying to think of the manliest activity I could. I'm not taking a riflery class or playing football. I'm learning a skill. Why is this skill so much more impressive than learning, say, to dye cloth like the costume designers do? Or to program in Java the way my housemate JDG did?

So then a couple things happened. Last week, I got burned on my collarbone -- second degree! It blistered! -- by a piece of hot slag. I'll be honest, I showed it off and I bragged about it.

And then I watched this:

Hearing a girl say "I don't want to die without any scars" solidified it a little for me. I don't want to die without any scars. And welding is dangerous. Welding is liable to hurt you. And I guess, from the reaction I've been getting, women who are five feet tall don't do things that are liable to hurt them, apparently.

Trying to find a single Saturday when everyone in a cast of 12 is available to do another performance of Bad Hamlet is impossible. I'll be over here in a corner having anxiety attacks for the first time in months.

Doc: TOTAL SIDENOTE -- Epimetheus is married to a woman made for him named Helen.

Me: ... Pandora?

Doc: PANDORA. Right. And she and Epimetheus are a perfect match. Because they're both IDIOTS.

Me: *face in hands giggling*

And now he's going through how Deukalion = Noah and Japeth = Iapetus.

ETA: Further choice quotes.

Doc: This is the important part of Prometheus' tragic nature -- that when he goes to steal the fire from the gods, he knows everything that's going to happen to him.

Doc: Dr. Manhattan is very much a Promethean figure. ... He's got that really annoying way of talking. Having a conversation with Prometheus is like having a metaphysical conversation with the Devil. "Well maybe God is a substance or force--" "Nah." And with Prometheus it's like "Well maybe these actions are going to result in--" "Nah." "Or maybe it'll--" "Nah." Right? "So, Dr. Manhattan? Did I do right, in the end?" "End? Nothing ever ends." "Fuck you! You know what we do to people like you? We chain them to rocks and have an eagle eat their liver once a day!"

ETA: For some reason the entrance of Hermes near the end of the play always cracks me up. "HEY. HEY, OLD MAN. YEAH YOU. Um. Zeus says tells us who's going to overthrow him right now or . . . or you'll be sorry! Jerkwad!"

"AHAHAHA you whippersnapper. Piss off."

ETA2:The scene closes with earthquake and thunder, in the midst of which PROMETHEUS and the DAUGHTERS OF OCEANUS sink into the abyss.

In Monsters class. Dissecting Harry Potter as myth. First criterion: "Myth is a complex network of narratives."

Doc: Is Harry Potter a complex network of narratives?Student: No.Student 2: Yes!Doc: I'd argue yes. First we have the primary sources, the books. Then we have--Student 3: The movies.Student 4: The rides.Student 5: Fanfiction.

And now we're talking about the monster origins of Dementors and Thestrals and House Elves.

So I'm hanging out in Seattle, and serendipitously, newredshoes was in town and I got to hang out with her and Emmy and a couple local theatre people. Nice! (Esther, I looked up "Big City Life." I'm going to have to watch this show now, aren't I? Damn you!)

I have set up meetings with two more local theatre people whose names I got from my advisor. Double nice!

Feedback for my final papers and final grades are starting to come in. I didn't have the greatest semester -- by which I mean that for once, the B's may match or outnumber the A's, which is really not something I should complain about, but it's coming at a week when I'm already kind of anxious. I don't know whether to blame senioritis or Midsummer. Probably both. Ah, well, not a hell of a lot I can do about it now, and thinking about it makes me even more anxious.

I feel like writing fic (rewatching Middleman has made me crave MM/SPN crossovers) and RPing. Maybe I'll do some actual Milliways EPs! Maybe I'll even figure out what Kim's been up to since I broke her ribs and what Tom's been up to since I shoved him out of the bar. (Actually, I know what Tom's been up to since I shoved him out of the bar, it's just so nightmarish -- literally -- that I feel bad writing it down.)

. . . Apparently Tom Waits wrote the music for an opera called Alice. (ETA: spfffft directed by Robert Wilson no less. That must've been a trip and a half.)

It also includes the following song:

which includes the following lyrics:

Oh, they called her Rosie when she was a girlFor her bright red cheeks and her strawberry curlsWhen she would laugh the river would runShe said she'd be a comedianOh what a pity, oh what a shameWhen she said, ‘come calling’, nobody cameNow her bright red cheeks are painted onAnd she's laughing her head off in the Reeperbahn

Am I the only person who thinks that Tom Waits songs sound like Dave McKean pictures look?

ETA 2: For my own reference:

Robert Wilson on 'Alice'"I had two acts based on the two Alice books with seven scenes and seven knee plays each. The whole play is framed by Charles Dodgson alias Lewis Carroll. Dodgson alias the White Rabbit alias the White Knight guides Alice through the play.It starts with Dodgson attempting to photograph Alice, and how, fleeing from him, she falls into Wonderland."

"Scene four shows Alice Liddell, now grown up, alone, drinking. Scene eleven shows Charles Dodgson alone, sleepless. The finale of each act (scenes seven and fourteen) is a trial scene, in which first Alice, then Dodgson are found guilty of this relationship."